Decorating

Turning house into home is a journey

The Great American House: Tradition for the Way We Live Now by Gil Schafer II and The Things That Matter by Nate Berkus.

Photograph by: Handout photos
, Amazon

One of the most inviting spaces I have ever known was the home of my Aunt Ditha and Uncle Jan. The front hall of their suburban bungalow opened on to a living room with walls painted a soft French vanilla. There was no sofa, but, instead, five easy chairs in warm forest tones arranged in a circle around a round coffee table. Seated in one of them, you couldn't help but feel welcome - and embraced.

They are gone now, my aunt and uncle, and their 1950s home has been torn down and replaced by something much bigger. I choose to remember the house the way it was - as a place in which I always felt enveloped by love.

It was by no means a fancy house. But it had its own style: they were hospitable and gracious people - and the house reflected their personalities.

"I've always believed your home should tell your story," New York City-based interior designer Nate Berkus writes in the preface to his wonderful new book, The Things That Matter (Spiegel & Grau, 2012), in which he invites readers into his own home and a dozen others - spaces that, to him, reflect and reveal something of heir owners.

"That pine table over there? I found it in a shop just outside of Mexico City. The sun was beating down and I was a little hungry, but I saw it and I knew I wanted to look at it every day. Those cuff links? They belonged to somebody I loved; we picked them out on one of the most perfect days we ever spent together. That tortoise shell on the wall? There was one exactly like it in my mother's house and I can't see it without thinking about a thousand inedible family dinners."

Creating a home that reflects who you are, where you have been and what you hold dear is a journey that cannot be accomplished all at once.

"We evolve over the years," writes Berkus, who was a regular on The Oprah Show, then had his own daytime syndicated talk show for a time. "We look at old photos of ourselves and can't believe we were wearing that madras jacket, sporting that awful haircut, working that job."

Our experiences influence us - the people we meet, the places we visit, the books we read. We become surer of what we want. I have always gravitated to old homes, to furniture with patina, objects that have a history. While I appreciate modern and sophisticated rooms when I am in them, I know that I prefer to surround myself with rustic furnishings and worn things.

"My home speaks to me," designer Darryl Carter writes in The Collected Home: Rooms with Style, Grace, and History (Clarkson Potter, 2012). "It is a gathering of all things personal - each with its own story, not because of its worth, but because of its interest."

I'm keener now than I used to be on trying to understand what makes a space work, why some places are so inviting, whereas, in others, I'm wary of even sitting down. I have taken to reading shelter magazines and books about design and decor, to studying photographs of details and moods.

It's not the how-to books I turn to so much as those that explore what makes a space come together. Like Around Beauty (Rizzoli, 2012), for instance, the stellar first book from interior designer Barbara Barry, a fascinating look at her own creative process - at how and where she finds inspiration.

Like The Great American House: Tradition for the Way We Live Now (Rizzoli, 2012). "As a residential architect," writes Gil Schafer III, "I believe that the highest achievement to which I can aspire is just that - creating a home. And the word 'home,' to me, has everything to do with comfort, family and friends, and memories most of all."

In the end, there's something ineffable about the whole business of making a house a home - and something that continues to evolve, I believe, until the end of our days.

"There is a mysterious alchemy in the putting together of rooms and houses," Ben Pentreath observes in English Decoration: Timeless Inspiration for the Contemporary Home (Ryland Peters & Small, 2012). "Myriad ingredients combine to create the perfect interior: light, views, the relationship of one room to the next, and to the landscape or the city beyond ... Or maybe it is the personality of the owner that is stronger, woven into every fibre?"